" ... Washington echelons repeatedly threatened to overthrow the Iraqi government if they continued their opposition to the security deal ... "
Janaati: Iraq passed US deal out of force
Fri, 28 Nov 2008
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76819§ionid=351020101
The Iraqi Parliament was pressured into voting in favor of the US-proposed security agreement, says a senior Iranian official.
A member of Iran's Guardian Council said on Friday that Washington had threatened to topple the Iraqi government if it resisted the security deal and therefore forced the ratification of the controversial agreement.
"Washington echelons repeatedly threatened to overthrow the Iraqi government if they continued their opposition to the security deal," said Tehran's interim Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.
Iraq's al-Morsad reported on Oct. 10 that US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had warned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would be 'ousted' unless he signed the US-proposed security pact.
Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi has also claimed that the Bush administration had threatened to cut off vital services to Baghdad if it further delayed the accord, saying the threats were akin to 'political blackmail'.
"It was really shocking for us…Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing," al-Hashimi said on Oct. 26.
According to Ayatollah Jannati, Iraqi lawmakers approved the bill to safeguard the interests of the war-torn country and drive away potential threats.
The Iraqi Parliament after much deliberation decided on Thursday to approve a controversial security pact with the United States after government concessions to put the agreement to a referendum no later than July 30, 2009.
The deal has met extreme opposition in the oil-rich country as it extends US presence in Iraq for an additional three years and grants Americans immunity from persecution in Iraqi courts.
The agreement had been signed by the Iraqi Cabinet before gaining parliamentary approval and now requires the ratification of Iraq's Presidential Council.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Newt’s ’Gay Fascism’ Comment Slammed
by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor
www.edgeboston.com
Nov 26, 2008
Voter approval of a ballot initiative in California, Proposition 8, which rescinded the existing right of gay and lesbian families to marry, has sparked a massive, nation-wide resistance, with almost entirely peaceful demonstrations occurring in 300 cities around America, a new legal challenge to the amendment headed to the California Supreme Court, and a vow to fight, and repeal, the anti-gay measure unifying GLBT organizations.
But the response of gay and lesbian Americans fighting for their families has given far-right wing figures an opportunity to promote neoconservative causes, even at the dawn of the Obama administration and a Democratic White House.
Zeroing in on a few rare, isolated instances in which anti-Prop. 8 demonstrators crossed the line--instances, some say, in which that behavior was provoked by publicity-seeking Prop. 8 supporters--Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly and his recent guest, Newt Gingrich, launched a renewed assault against American gay and lesbian families by painting them as "fascists."
This is nothing new. The right--from social conservatives to far-fringe Christian Web outlets--routinely dismiss and demonize gay individuals, families, and organizations as "fascists."
Indeed, such Web outlets sometimes refer to gays as "fascists" and "anarchists" indiscriminately, despite the polar opposition of those political stances.
But Newt Gingrich’s re-emergence, and his embrace of the characterization of gays and lesbians as "fascists" has led to outrage, and to concern--and not just here at home.
In the UK newspaper The Guardian, a Nov. 25 article predicted that Gingrich might rise to power anew, much as he did in the early 1990s, when he exploited white male anger and ushered in an era of Republican Congressional control even as Democratic president Bill Clinton steered the country to a period of prosperity from the White House.
In the current financial meltdown, the aftermath of two terms of Republican president George W. Bush, the voters’ mood has proven volatile: Democratic President-elect Barack Obama has been elected to the White House as much on his mantra of "change" as his well-articulated strategies for economic recovery.
But foundational change will only come gradually, and two years from now, with the 2010 mid-term elections, another Republican sweep is not out of the question, should the American public grow impatient with the drab fact that economic recovery is likely to take years--perhaps decades--and that Obama cannot turn the situation around overnight.
Noted the Guardian article, "Today, [as in 1993] another Democrat is entering the White House with a governing majority in both Houses of Congress.
"And Newt is back, doing what he does best--laying the groundwork for a Republican comeback by preying on the fears of the populace.
"And, who knows, perhaps if he keeps the Democrats from winning an obstruction-proof majority in the Senate, he’s on the road back to real power.
The Guardian article points out that, "Barack Obama may have won the US presidency by a decisive margin, but the strength of his governing majority remains uncertain.
"In two states, Minnesota and Georgia, the results of Senate races have yet to be determined.
"Minnesota’s is headed for a recount and perhaps a court challenge. Georgia’s is headed for a runoff next week."
Notes the article, "Should the Democrats prevail in both contests, they will have the coveted 60-vote majority required for governing with ease.
"A vote shy of 60 on any piece of legislation allows the opposition to hold it up indefinitely by means of a filibuster--a privilege that Republicans wish dearly to retain."
Enter Gingrich, which the article speculates has brought his rhetoric about "fascism," and his targeting of gay and lesbian Americans, always a soft target, to the stage.
In his Nov. 14 appearance on O’Reilly’s program, Gingrich engaged the talk show host over the topic of the anti-Proposition 8 demonstrations.
O’Reilly did not address the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protests, but instead cherry-picked an incident in Palm Springs in which an elderly woman carrying a Styrofoam cross pushed her way into the thick of an anti-Prop. 8 candlelight vigil, apparently in an attempt to make her way to a film crew.
The same woman, Phyliss Burgess, had been filmed by that crew five days earlier when she carried a cross into a Gay Pride parade.
Several people in the crowd grew so angry that they snatched the cross from Burgess and stomped it to bits.
That episode of violence has proven a cause celebre for right-wing blogs, Web sites, and now, Bill O’Reilly and Fox news.
Using the highly unusual--and nearly unique--incident as an opportunity to blacken all America’s gays and lesbians, Gingrich declaimed that, "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment."
Seeking to link the so-called gay "fascists" to the President-Elect, Gingrich continued, "I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it."
Quoting from a familiar religious script used recently by prominent anti-gay figures such as Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern, who compared gays to terrorists and predicted the end of civilization because of the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians, Gingrich went on, "I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.
"And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact."
Gingrich’s attempt to link gays with fascism elicited a detailed history lesson from Patricia Nell Warren, who wrote an extensive article on the subject that appeared Nov. 26 at The Huffington Post.
Wrote Warren, "Good grief, Newt Gingrich is ’teaching’ history again.
"On the Bill O’Reilly show the other day, Gingrich came up with his biggest lie about history yet. He said, ’I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us... it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.’
"Wow," continued Warren. "And to think that the real fascists were neither gay nor secular. In fact, the real fascists supported--and were shamelessly supported by--ultra-traditional Christian religion.
"I’m talking mainly about Spain’s Franco, Germany’s Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini, who were the most powerful and destructive figures among European fascist rulers of the 20th century."
Noted Warren, "Hitler himself--who is the focus of American conservatives’ fascistophobia--was born and raised a Catholic, and never left the Catholic Church. Indeed, he encouraged his top leadership people to stay Catholic as well."
In the course of her detailed explanation of what constitutes fascism historically, Warren wrote, "Throughout the 20th century, a number of fascist regimes popped up like thunderheads along the Western horizon, all the way from north Europe to South America.
"They all had certain dark quirks in common. They were totalitarian, right-wing and military--fiercely nationalistic, often expansionist, and enjoyed strong support from wealthy aristocracy, industry and big business."
Warren also cited the Webster’s Dictionary definition of fascism, which, the reference book says, is "a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."
"But the Webster’s definition carefully avoids mentioning religion," Warren adds. "Yet Europe’s fascist regimes had religious underpinnings.
"Much of Europe’s ultraconservative Christian leadership--notably the Vatican--supported and appeased those 20th-century fascist movements.
"In fact, the tie to conservative Christianity made fascism the sworn enemy of communism, which had stomped on the churches in every country it took over.
"The Christian tie also made fascism obsessively and moralistically controlling of the sexual, reproductive and family lives of its citizens."
Added Warren, "Last but not least, the ’forcible suppression’ of fascist regimes was directed at classes of people that conservative Protestants and Catholics had always hated and feared--notably Jews and homosexuals."
Warren went on to observe, "Americans who believe that Hitler was a ’secular’ and ’pagan’ figure have never bothered to read Mein Kampf.
"Today it’s one of the least-read among history-making books. Copies have been quietly removed from most public and school libraries, so the only place you can find it is online and used-book services.
"And no wonder it’s ignored," Warren added. "When I read it for the first time, I was amazed to see the many invocations of Almighty God, and the admiring mentions of the Holy Roman Empire.
"And comments like the following: ’I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.’"
Warren went on to sketch out the friendly relations between the Catholic church and dictators Franco and Mussolini.
Wrote Warren, "Does my thumbnail portrait of three fascist rulers sound like anything that LGBT activists are standing for? I think not.
"In fact, everything for which our liberal, pluralist, democratic, individualist movement stands is exactly the kind of thing that the real fascists tried to stamp out.
"Now we come to the $64 question. How does a talking head like Newt Gingrich get away with such an appalling lie about history?"
Warren’s article examined the ways in which Hitler and other fascist figures are re-cast today as "Satanic" or anti-Christian, when they promoted themselves as acting in the interests of the Christian faith.
Warren addressed another element of modern revisionism, writing, "As a sideline, conservative media are developing a sub-myth that the Hitler movement itself was ’homosexual.’
"They point to the fact that stormtrooper chief Ernst Rohm’s homosexuality and that of a few of Rohm’s buddies was evidently known to Hitler during the early years.
"However, Hitler’s willingness to use people and institutions--including the Catholic and Lutheran Churches--explains his temporary forbearance in Rohm’s case.
"During the social violence attending the Nazi Party’s rise, Hitler needed Rohm’s muscle to establish and protect himself. Eventually, however, Hitler felt secure enough to get rid of Rohm. During the famous ’Night of the Long Knives,’ the Fuhrer had Rohm and his gay associates massacred."
Wrote Warren, "This event--and the fact that homosexuality was a capital crime under the Nazis, who sent an estimated 100,000 homosexuals, mostly gay men, to the death camps--sends its own clear message.
"The Nazis’ real views on sexual orientation were the same as those of ultra-traditional Christians in the U.S. who want to have all homosexuals put to death."
Warren pointed out that those movements from the mid-20th century have their analogues today: "...these ultra-traditional church activists say openly that they want to take over the United States, get rid of democracy and the Bill of Rights, establish a state religion, invade and occupy other countries, control everybody’s sex lives, and kill any factions that they don’t approve of.
"Some of them are even fiercely anti-Semitic. Indeed, their aims are laid out in their own writings, which can be found and read by anybody who really wants to know what they’re up to."
Gingrich’s half-sister, gay activist Candace Gingrich, published her own essay, in the form of a letter to her brother Newt, in a Nov. 22 article in the Huffington Post.
"Dear Newt," wrote Candace Gingrich, "I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.
"I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, ’There you go, again.’"
Added Gingrich, "However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.
"The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as--and we embrace what it can be.
"You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.
"Welcome to the 21st century, big bro."
Gingrich continued, "I can understand why you’re so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign.
"I can see why you’re sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.
"This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality," Gingrich wrote. "They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever--and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don’t roll that way."
Gingrich noted that voters between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Barack Obama, and against Proposition 8, and asserted that, "the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow."
Added Gingrich, "Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years."
Wrote Gingrich, "This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It’s a movement of progress--and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes."
Added Gingrich, "Then again, we’ve seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first.
"You give a pass to a religious group--one that looks down upon minorities and women--when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us ’fascists’ when we fight back.
"You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of ’traditional’ marriage.
"And, of course, you’ve also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes."
Wrote Gingrich, "I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of ’historic Christianity’ you claim to champion."
Gingrich went on to write, "What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions.
"That’s really so ’90s, Newt. In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that."
Added Gingrich, "In other words, stop being a hater, big bro."
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
EDGE Contributor
www.edgeboston.com
Nov 26, 2008
Voter approval of a ballot initiative in California, Proposition 8, which rescinded the existing right of gay and lesbian families to marry, has sparked a massive, nation-wide resistance, with almost entirely peaceful demonstrations occurring in 300 cities around America, a new legal challenge to the amendment headed to the California Supreme Court, and a vow to fight, and repeal, the anti-gay measure unifying GLBT organizations.
But the response of gay and lesbian Americans fighting for their families has given far-right wing figures an opportunity to promote neoconservative causes, even at the dawn of the Obama administration and a Democratic White House.
Zeroing in on a few rare, isolated instances in which anti-Prop. 8 demonstrators crossed the line--instances, some say, in which that behavior was provoked by publicity-seeking Prop. 8 supporters--Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly and his recent guest, Newt Gingrich, launched a renewed assault against American gay and lesbian families by painting them as "fascists."
This is nothing new. The right--from social conservatives to far-fringe Christian Web outlets--routinely dismiss and demonize gay individuals, families, and organizations as "fascists."
Indeed, such Web outlets sometimes refer to gays as "fascists" and "anarchists" indiscriminately, despite the polar opposition of those political stances.
But Newt Gingrich’s re-emergence, and his embrace of the characterization of gays and lesbians as "fascists" has led to outrage, and to concern--and not just here at home.
In the UK newspaper The Guardian, a Nov. 25 article predicted that Gingrich might rise to power anew, much as he did in the early 1990s, when he exploited white male anger and ushered in an era of Republican Congressional control even as Democratic president Bill Clinton steered the country to a period of prosperity from the White House.
In the current financial meltdown, the aftermath of two terms of Republican president George W. Bush, the voters’ mood has proven volatile: Democratic President-elect Barack Obama has been elected to the White House as much on his mantra of "change" as his well-articulated strategies for economic recovery.
But foundational change will only come gradually, and two years from now, with the 2010 mid-term elections, another Republican sweep is not out of the question, should the American public grow impatient with the drab fact that economic recovery is likely to take years--perhaps decades--and that Obama cannot turn the situation around overnight.
Noted the Guardian article, "Today, [as in 1993] another Democrat is entering the White House with a governing majority in both Houses of Congress.
"And Newt is back, doing what he does best--laying the groundwork for a Republican comeback by preying on the fears of the populace.
"And, who knows, perhaps if he keeps the Democrats from winning an obstruction-proof majority in the Senate, he’s on the road back to real power.
The Guardian article points out that, "Barack Obama may have won the US presidency by a decisive margin, but the strength of his governing majority remains uncertain.
"In two states, Minnesota and Georgia, the results of Senate races have yet to be determined.
"Minnesota’s is headed for a recount and perhaps a court challenge. Georgia’s is headed for a runoff next week."
Notes the article, "Should the Democrats prevail in both contests, they will have the coveted 60-vote majority required for governing with ease.
"A vote shy of 60 on any piece of legislation allows the opposition to hold it up indefinitely by means of a filibuster--a privilege that Republicans wish dearly to retain."
Enter Gingrich, which the article speculates has brought his rhetoric about "fascism," and his targeting of gay and lesbian Americans, always a soft target, to the stage.
In his Nov. 14 appearance on O’Reilly’s program, Gingrich engaged the talk show host over the topic of the anti-Proposition 8 demonstrations.
O’Reilly did not address the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protests, but instead cherry-picked an incident in Palm Springs in which an elderly woman carrying a Styrofoam cross pushed her way into the thick of an anti-Prop. 8 candlelight vigil, apparently in an attempt to make her way to a film crew.
The same woman, Phyliss Burgess, had been filmed by that crew five days earlier when she carried a cross into a Gay Pride parade.
Several people in the crowd grew so angry that they snatched the cross from Burgess and stomped it to bits.
That episode of violence has proven a cause celebre for right-wing blogs, Web sites, and now, Bill O’Reilly and Fox news.
Using the highly unusual--and nearly unique--incident as an opportunity to blacken all America’s gays and lesbians, Gingrich declaimed that, "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment."
Seeking to link the so-called gay "fascists" to the President-Elect, Gingrich continued, "I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it."
Quoting from a familiar religious script used recently by prominent anti-gay figures such as Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern, who compared gays to terrorists and predicted the end of civilization because of the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians, Gingrich went on, "I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.
"And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact."
Gingrich’s attempt to link gays with fascism elicited a detailed history lesson from Patricia Nell Warren, who wrote an extensive article on the subject that appeared Nov. 26 at The Huffington Post.
Wrote Warren, "Good grief, Newt Gingrich is ’teaching’ history again.
"On the Bill O’Reilly show the other day, Gingrich came up with his biggest lie about history yet. He said, ’I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us... it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.’
"Wow," continued Warren. "And to think that the real fascists were neither gay nor secular. In fact, the real fascists supported--and were shamelessly supported by--ultra-traditional Christian religion.
"I’m talking mainly about Spain’s Franco, Germany’s Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini, who were the most powerful and destructive figures among European fascist rulers of the 20th century."
Noted Warren, "Hitler himself--who is the focus of American conservatives’ fascistophobia--was born and raised a Catholic, and never left the Catholic Church. Indeed, he encouraged his top leadership people to stay Catholic as well."
In the course of her detailed explanation of what constitutes fascism historically, Warren wrote, "Throughout the 20th century, a number of fascist regimes popped up like thunderheads along the Western horizon, all the way from north Europe to South America.
"They all had certain dark quirks in common. They were totalitarian, right-wing and military--fiercely nationalistic, often expansionist, and enjoyed strong support from wealthy aristocracy, industry and big business."
Warren also cited the Webster’s Dictionary definition of fascism, which, the reference book says, is "a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."
"But the Webster’s definition carefully avoids mentioning religion," Warren adds. "Yet Europe’s fascist regimes had religious underpinnings.
"Much of Europe’s ultraconservative Christian leadership--notably the Vatican--supported and appeased those 20th-century fascist movements.
"In fact, the tie to conservative Christianity made fascism the sworn enemy of communism, which had stomped on the churches in every country it took over.
"The Christian tie also made fascism obsessively and moralistically controlling of the sexual, reproductive and family lives of its citizens."
Added Warren, "Last but not least, the ’forcible suppression’ of fascist regimes was directed at classes of people that conservative Protestants and Catholics had always hated and feared--notably Jews and homosexuals."
Warren went on to observe, "Americans who believe that Hitler was a ’secular’ and ’pagan’ figure have never bothered to read Mein Kampf.
"Today it’s one of the least-read among history-making books. Copies have been quietly removed from most public and school libraries, so the only place you can find it is online and used-book services.
"And no wonder it’s ignored," Warren added. "When I read it for the first time, I was amazed to see the many invocations of Almighty God, and the admiring mentions of the Holy Roman Empire.
"And comments like the following: ’I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.’"
Warren went on to sketch out the friendly relations between the Catholic church and dictators Franco and Mussolini.
Wrote Warren, "Does my thumbnail portrait of three fascist rulers sound like anything that LGBT activists are standing for? I think not.
"In fact, everything for which our liberal, pluralist, democratic, individualist movement stands is exactly the kind of thing that the real fascists tried to stamp out.
"Now we come to the $64 question. How does a talking head like Newt Gingrich get away with such an appalling lie about history?"
Warren’s article examined the ways in which Hitler and other fascist figures are re-cast today as "Satanic" or anti-Christian, when they promoted themselves as acting in the interests of the Christian faith.
Warren addressed another element of modern revisionism, writing, "As a sideline, conservative media are developing a sub-myth that the Hitler movement itself was ’homosexual.’
"They point to the fact that stormtrooper chief Ernst Rohm’s homosexuality and that of a few of Rohm’s buddies was evidently known to Hitler during the early years.
"However, Hitler’s willingness to use people and institutions--including the Catholic and Lutheran Churches--explains his temporary forbearance in Rohm’s case.
"During the social violence attending the Nazi Party’s rise, Hitler needed Rohm’s muscle to establish and protect himself. Eventually, however, Hitler felt secure enough to get rid of Rohm. During the famous ’Night of the Long Knives,’ the Fuhrer had Rohm and his gay associates massacred."
Wrote Warren, "This event--and the fact that homosexuality was a capital crime under the Nazis, who sent an estimated 100,000 homosexuals, mostly gay men, to the death camps--sends its own clear message.
"The Nazis’ real views on sexual orientation were the same as those of ultra-traditional Christians in the U.S. who want to have all homosexuals put to death."
Warren pointed out that those movements from the mid-20th century have their analogues today: "...these ultra-traditional church activists say openly that they want to take over the United States, get rid of democracy and the Bill of Rights, establish a state religion, invade and occupy other countries, control everybody’s sex lives, and kill any factions that they don’t approve of.
"Some of them are even fiercely anti-Semitic. Indeed, their aims are laid out in their own writings, which can be found and read by anybody who really wants to know what they’re up to."
Gingrich’s half-sister, gay activist Candace Gingrich, published her own essay, in the form of a letter to her brother Newt, in a Nov. 22 article in the Huffington Post.
"Dear Newt," wrote Candace Gingrich, "I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.
"I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, ’There you go, again.’"
Added Gingrich, "However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.
"The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as--and we embrace what it can be.
"You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.
"Welcome to the 21st century, big bro."
Gingrich continued, "I can understand why you’re so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign.
"I can see why you’re sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.
"This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality," Gingrich wrote. "They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever--and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don’t roll that way."
Gingrich noted that voters between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Barack Obama, and against Proposition 8, and asserted that, "the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow."
Added Gingrich, "Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years."
Wrote Gingrich, "This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It’s a movement of progress--and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes."
Added Gingrich, "Then again, we’ve seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first.
"You give a pass to a religious group--one that looks down upon minorities and women--when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us ’fascists’ when we fight back.
"You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of ’traditional’ marriage.
"And, of course, you’ve also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes."
Wrote Gingrich, "I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of ’historic Christianity’ you claim to champion."
Gingrich went on to write, "What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions.
"That’s really so ’90s, Newt. In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that."
Added Gingrich, "In other words, stop being a hater, big bro."
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
Co-opting Intellectual Aggressors - The "Progressive" Face of the CIA
" ... In an attempt to develop a more nuanced understanding of the CIA's role in contemporary society this essay will explore their long-term involvement in utilising ostensibly progressive dissent in the service of imperialism. ... It should not be surprising that the same elites who worked within the upper echelons of both the CIA and the world of liberal philanthropy would ensure that the CIA (which was created in 1947) would play an important role in manipulating progressive social movements globally. ... "
by Michael Barker
Swans Commentary
November 17, 2008
"The CIA offers exciting career opportunities and a dynamic environment. We're on the forefront of world-altering events -- as they happen. So working here isn't just a job, it's a mindset and a lifestyle." — Central Intelligence Agency -- 2008.
"Those who hold power in the society retain control, though they may grant support to dissidents when it suits their immediate purposes... [T]hose in power know precisely why their support is rendered, even if the recipients know neither the reason nor the source." — Dan Schechter, Michael Ansara, and David Kolodney -- 1982. (1)
(Swans - November 17, 2008) Mention the CIA to most historically-informed people and the immediate images that spring to mind are those of assassinations, coups d'état, drug running, and covert wars. On the other hand, those individuals whose understanding of the CIA's work has been stunted, primarily though exposure to the mass media, are more inclined to associate the CIA with bungling over-resourced spies, rogue elephants, or perhaps, in the case of conservatives, as patriotic warriors protecting homeland security. (2) Yet another side to the CIA that is rarely mentioned by progressives, let alone the mainstream media, is their commitment to public activism. By commitment I do not refer to their dedication to infiltrating progressive social movements with informants or agent provocateurs, although this is of course an important aspect of the subterfuge undertaken by the Agency. Instead I refer to the CIA's ongoing efforts to channelling popular dissatisfaction with political processes -- on both a theoretical and grassroots level -- towards support for counterrevolutionary causes. (3) Key organizations that have historically played an important role in helping the CIA's democracy manipulators include the most influential liberal foundations, two prominent examples being the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. (4) So in an attempt to develop a more nuanced understanding of the CIA's role in contemporary society this essay will explore their long-term involvement in utilising ostensibly progressive dissent in the service of imperialism.
Like most class-conscious institutions, the CIA is not stupid, although a useful PR purpose is served by presenting their activities as such. Instead the elites managing the upper echelons of the CIA have long understood the power of grassroots activism, and have demonstrated their longstanding fear of the public by industriously working to undermine our ability to effectively cooperate with one another to promote our own best interests. One simple elite method of attacking popular social movements that challenge capitalist interests is to destroy their leaders, firstly by attempting to weaken their legitimacy in the cultural sphere, and when this fails, by resorting to the literal termination of their lives. However, another more proactive, and arguably more effective, strategy to undermine the revolutionary potential of dissent is to co-opt it: a tactic that if taken to its logical extreme involves the manufacture of dissident groups, which pre-empt organic (more radical) grassroots responses to capitalist-driven injustices. This form of political warfare is as old as politics itself; yet as a result of significant plutocratic advances in the early twentieth century, and the ensuing public resistance to these developments, such co-optive strategies were institutionalized within capitalist states in the form of liberal foundations. As Edward Berman notes in his important book The Ideology of Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy (State University of New York Press, 1983), the goals of such foundations...
It should not be surprising that the same elites who worked within the upper echelons of both the CIA and the world of liberal philanthropy would ensure that the CIA (which was created in 1947) would play an important role in manipulating progressive social movements globally. In this regard it is clear that the leading US-based liberal foundations were not the CIA's unwitting dupes. (8) However, given the progressive image that these liberal philanthropists wish to project to the public, revelations in the late 1960s of their ties to the much maligned CIA led to "reforms" of the CIA's funding relations. In truth these reforms merely catalysed a chain of events that would ensure that the CIA's soft-power politics (philanthropic manipulation) were institutionally isolated from their hard-power politics (which includes their covert military operations). ...
STORY CONTINUES
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker08.html
by Michael Barker
Swans Commentary
November 17, 2008
"The CIA offers exciting career opportunities and a dynamic environment. We're on the forefront of world-altering events -- as they happen. So working here isn't just a job, it's a mindset and a lifestyle." — Central Intelligence Agency -- 2008.
"Those who hold power in the society retain control, though they may grant support to dissidents when it suits their immediate purposes... [T]hose in power know precisely why their support is rendered, even if the recipients know neither the reason nor the source." — Dan Schechter, Michael Ansara, and David Kolodney -- 1982. (1)
(Swans - November 17, 2008) Mention the CIA to most historically-informed people and the immediate images that spring to mind are those of assassinations, coups d'état, drug running, and covert wars. On the other hand, those individuals whose understanding of the CIA's work has been stunted, primarily though exposure to the mass media, are more inclined to associate the CIA with bungling over-resourced spies, rogue elephants, or perhaps, in the case of conservatives, as patriotic warriors protecting homeland security. (2) Yet another side to the CIA that is rarely mentioned by progressives, let alone the mainstream media, is their commitment to public activism. By commitment I do not refer to their dedication to infiltrating progressive social movements with informants or agent provocateurs, although this is of course an important aspect of the subterfuge undertaken by the Agency. Instead I refer to the CIA's ongoing efforts to channelling popular dissatisfaction with political processes -- on both a theoretical and grassroots level -- towards support for counterrevolutionary causes. (3) Key organizations that have historically played an important role in helping the CIA's democracy manipulators include the most influential liberal foundations, two prominent examples being the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. (4) So in an attempt to develop a more nuanced understanding of the CIA's role in contemporary society this essay will explore their long-term involvement in utilising ostensibly progressive dissent in the service of imperialism.
Like most class-conscious institutions, the CIA is not stupid, although a useful PR purpose is served by presenting their activities as such. Instead the elites managing the upper echelons of the CIA have long understood the power of grassroots activism, and have demonstrated their longstanding fear of the public by industriously working to undermine our ability to effectively cooperate with one another to promote our own best interests. One simple elite method of attacking popular social movements that challenge capitalist interests is to destroy their leaders, firstly by attempting to weaken their legitimacy in the cultural sphere, and when this fails, by resorting to the literal termination of their lives. However, another more proactive, and arguably more effective, strategy to undermine the revolutionary potential of dissent is to co-opt it: a tactic that if taken to its logical extreme involves the manufacture of dissident groups, which pre-empt organic (more radical) grassroots responses to capitalist-driven injustices. This form of political warfare is as old as politics itself; yet as a result of significant plutocratic advances in the early twentieth century, and the ensuing public resistance to these developments, such co-optive strategies were institutionalized within capitalist states in the form of liberal foundations. As Edward Berman notes in his important book The Ideology of Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy (State University of New York Press, 1983), the goals of such foundations...
It should not be surprising that the same elites who worked within the upper echelons of both the CIA and the world of liberal philanthropy would ensure that the CIA (which was created in 1947) would play an important role in manipulating progressive social movements globally. In this regard it is clear that the leading US-based liberal foundations were not the CIA's unwitting dupes. (8) However, given the progressive image that these liberal philanthropists wish to project to the public, revelations in the late 1960s of their ties to the much maligned CIA led to "reforms" of the CIA's funding relations. In truth these reforms merely catalysed a chain of events that would ensure that the CIA's soft-power politics (philanthropic manipulation) were institutionally isolated from their hard-power politics (which includes their covert military operations). ...
STORY CONTINUES
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker08.html
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Public Broadcasting & State Propaganda (2005 NYT Article)
The Armstrong Williams NewsHour
By FRANK RICH
NYT
June 26, 2005
HERE'S the difference between this year's battle over public broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich's face a decade ago: this one isn't really about the survival of public broadcasting. So don't be distracted by any premature obituaries for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he's the ornithological equivalent of a red herring.
Let's not forget that Laura Bush has made a fetish of glomming onto popular "Sesame Street" characters in photo-ops. Polls consistently attest to the popular support for public broadcasting, while Congress is in a race to the bottom with Michael Jackson. Big Bird will once again smite the politicians - as long as he isn't caught consorting with lesbians.
That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.
There's only one obstacle standing in the way of the coup. Like Richard Nixon, another president who tried to subvert public broadcasting in his war to silence critical news media, our current president may be letting hubris get the best of him. His minions are giving any investigative reporters left in Washington a fresh incentive to follow the money.
That money is not the $100 million that the House still threatens to hack out of public broadcasting's various budgets. Like the theoretical demise of Big Bird, this funding tug-of-war is a smoke screen that deflects attention from the real story. Look instead at the seemingly paltry $14,170 that, as Stephen Labaton of The New York Times reported on June 16, found its way to a mysterious recipient in Indiana named Fred Mann. Mr. Labaton learned that in 2004 Kenneth Tomlinson, the Karl Rove pal who is chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, clandestinely paid this sum to Mr. Mann to monitor his PBS bête noire, Bill Moyers's "Now."
Now, why would Mr. Tomlinson pay for information that any half-sentient viewer could track with TiVo? Why would he hire someone in Indiana? Why would he keep this contract a secret from his own board? Why, when a reporter exposed his secret, would he try to cover it up by falsely maintaining in a letter to an inquiring member of the Senate, Byron Dorgan, that another CPB executive had "approved and signed" the Mann contract when he had signed it himself? If there's a news story that can be likened to the "third-rate burglary," the canary in the coal mine that invited greater scrutiny of the Nixon administration's darkest ambitions, this strange little sideshow could be it.
After Mr. Labaton's first report, Senator Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, called Mr. Tomlinson demanding to see the "product" Mr. Mann had provided for his $14,170 payday. Mr. Tomlinson sent the senator some 50 pages of "raw data." Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.
Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and "anti-administration" was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.
"It's pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it's pro or anti the president," Senator Dorgan said. "It's unbelievable."
Not from this gang. Mr. Mann was hardly chosen by chance to assemble what smells like the rough draft of a blacklist. He long worked for a right-wing outfit called the National Journalism Center, whose director, M. Stanton Evans, is writing his own Ann Coulteresque book to ameliorate the reputation of Joe McCarthy. What we don't know is whether the 50 pages handed over to Senator Dorgan is all there is to it, or how many other "monitors" may be out there compiling potential blacklists or Nixonian enemies lists on the taxpayers' dime.
We do know that it's standard practice for this administration to purge and punish dissenters and opponents - whether it's those in the Pentagon who criticized Donald Rumsfeld's low troop allotments for Iraq or lobbying firms on K Street that don't hire Tom DeLay cronies. We also know that Mr. Mann's highly ideological pedigree is typical of CPB hires during the Tomlinson reign.
Eric Boehlert of Salon discovered that one of the two public ombudsmen Mr. Tomlinson recruited in April to monitor the news broadcasts at PBS and NPR for objectivity, William Schulz, is a former writer for the radio broadcaster Fulton Lewis Jr., a notorious Joe McCarthy loyalist and slime artist. The Times reported that to provide "insights" into Conrad Burns, a Republican senator who supported public-broadcasting legislation that Mr. Tomlinson opposed, $10,000 was shelled out to Brian Darling, the G.O.P. operative who wrote the memo instructing Republicans to milk Terri Schiavo as "a great political issue."
Then, on Thursday, a Rove dream came true: Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, ascended to the CPB presidency. In her last job, as an assistant secretary of state, Ms. Harrison publicly praised the department's production of faux-news segments - she called them "good news" segments - promoting American success in Afghanistan and Iraq. As The Times reported in March, one of those fake news videos ended up being broadcast as real news on the Fox affiliate in Memphis.
Mr. Tomlinson has maintained that his goal at CPB is to strengthen public broadcasting by restoring "balance" and stamping out "liberal bias." But Mr. Moyers left "Now" six months ago. Mr. Tomlinson's real, not-so-hidden agenda is to enforce a conservative bias or, more specifically, a Bush bias. To this end, he has not only turned CPB into a full-service employment program for apparatchiks but also helped initiate "The Journal Editorial Report," the only public broadcasting show ever devoted to a single newspaper's editorial page, that of the zealously pro-Bush Wall Street Journal. Unlike Mr. Moyers's "Now" - which routinely balanced its host's liberalism with conservative guests like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Paul Gigot and Cal Thomas - The Journal's program does not include liberals of comparable stature.
THIS is all in keeping with Mr. Tomlinson's long career as a professional propagandist. During the Reagan administration he ran Voice of America. Then he moved on to edit Reader's Digest, where, according to Peter Canning's 1996 history of the magazine, "American Dreamers," he was rumored to be "a kind of 'Manchurian Candidate' " because of the ensuing spike in pro-C.I.A. spin in Digest articles. Today Mr. Tomlinson is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal body that supervises all nonmilitary international United States propaganda outlets, Voice of America included. That the administration's foremost propagandist would also be chairman of the board of CPB, the very organization meant to shield public broadcasting from government interference, is astonishing. But perhaps no more so than a White House press secretary month after month turning for softball questions to "Jeff Gannon," a fake reporter for a fake news organization ultimately unmasked as a G.O.P. activist's propaganda site.
As the public broadcasting debate plays out, there will be the usual talk about how to wean it from federal subsidy and the usual complaints (which I share) about the redundancy, commerciality and declining quality of some PBS programming in a cable universe. But once Big Bird, like that White House Thanksgiving turkey, is again ritualistically saved from the chopping block and the Senate restores more of the House's budget cuts, the most crucial test of the damage will be what survives of public broadcasting's irreplaceable journalistic offerings.
Will monitors start harassing Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour," which Mr. Tomlinson trashed at a March 2004 State Department conference as a "tired and slowed down" also-ran to Shepard Smith's rat-a-tat-tat newscast at Fox News? Will "Frontline" still be taking on the tough investigations that network news no longer touches? Will the reportage on NPR be fearless or the victim of a subtle or not-so-subtle chilling effect instilled by Mr. Tomlinson and his powerful allies in high places?
Forget the pledge drive. What's most likely to save the independent voice of public broadcasting from these thugs is a rising chorus of Deep Throats.
By FRANK RICH
NYT
June 26, 2005
HERE'S the difference between this year's battle over public broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich's face a decade ago: this one isn't really about the survival of public broadcasting. So don't be distracted by any premature obituaries for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he's the ornithological equivalent of a red herring.
Let's not forget that Laura Bush has made a fetish of glomming onto popular "Sesame Street" characters in photo-ops. Polls consistently attest to the popular support for public broadcasting, while Congress is in a race to the bottom with Michael Jackson. Big Bird will once again smite the politicians - as long as he isn't caught consorting with lesbians.
That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.
There's only one obstacle standing in the way of the coup. Like Richard Nixon, another president who tried to subvert public broadcasting in his war to silence critical news media, our current president may be letting hubris get the best of him. His minions are giving any investigative reporters left in Washington a fresh incentive to follow the money.
That money is not the $100 million that the House still threatens to hack out of public broadcasting's various budgets. Like the theoretical demise of Big Bird, this funding tug-of-war is a smoke screen that deflects attention from the real story. Look instead at the seemingly paltry $14,170 that, as Stephen Labaton of The New York Times reported on June 16, found its way to a mysterious recipient in Indiana named Fred Mann. Mr. Labaton learned that in 2004 Kenneth Tomlinson, the Karl Rove pal who is chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, clandestinely paid this sum to Mr. Mann to monitor his PBS bête noire, Bill Moyers's "Now."
Now, why would Mr. Tomlinson pay for information that any half-sentient viewer could track with TiVo? Why would he hire someone in Indiana? Why would he keep this contract a secret from his own board? Why, when a reporter exposed his secret, would he try to cover it up by falsely maintaining in a letter to an inquiring member of the Senate, Byron Dorgan, that another CPB executive had "approved and signed" the Mann contract when he had signed it himself? If there's a news story that can be likened to the "third-rate burglary," the canary in the coal mine that invited greater scrutiny of the Nixon administration's darkest ambitions, this strange little sideshow could be it.
After Mr. Labaton's first report, Senator Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, called Mr. Tomlinson demanding to see the "product" Mr. Mann had provided for his $14,170 payday. Mr. Tomlinson sent the senator some 50 pages of "raw data." Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.
Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and "anti-administration" was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.
"It's pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it's pro or anti the president," Senator Dorgan said. "It's unbelievable."
Not from this gang. Mr. Mann was hardly chosen by chance to assemble what smells like the rough draft of a blacklist. He long worked for a right-wing outfit called the National Journalism Center, whose director, M. Stanton Evans, is writing his own Ann Coulteresque book to ameliorate the reputation of Joe McCarthy. What we don't know is whether the 50 pages handed over to Senator Dorgan is all there is to it, or how many other "monitors" may be out there compiling potential blacklists or Nixonian enemies lists on the taxpayers' dime.
We do know that it's standard practice for this administration to purge and punish dissenters and opponents - whether it's those in the Pentagon who criticized Donald Rumsfeld's low troop allotments for Iraq or lobbying firms on K Street that don't hire Tom DeLay cronies. We also know that Mr. Mann's highly ideological pedigree is typical of CPB hires during the Tomlinson reign.
Eric Boehlert of Salon discovered that one of the two public ombudsmen Mr. Tomlinson recruited in April to monitor the news broadcasts at PBS and NPR for objectivity, William Schulz, is a former writer for the radio broadcaster Fulton Lewis Jr., a notorious Joe McCarthy loyalist and slime artist. The Times reported that to provide "insights" into Conrad Burns, a Republican senator who supported public-broadcasting legislation that Mr. Tomlinson opposed, $10,000 was shelled out to Brian Darling, the G.O.P. operative who wrote the memo instructing Republicans to milk Terri Schiavo as "a great political issue."
Then, on Thursday, a Rove dream came true: Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, ascended to the CPB presidency. In her last job, as an assistant secretary of state, Ms. Harrison publicly praised the department's production of faux-news segments - she called them "good news" segments - promoting American success in Afghanistan and Iraq. As The Times reported in March, one of those fake news videos ended up being broadcast as real news on the Fox affiliate in Memphis.
Mr. Tomlinson has maintained that his goal at CPB is to strengthen public broadcasting by restoring "balance" and stamping out "liberal bias." But Mr. Moyers left "Now" six months ago. Mr. Tomlinson's real, not-so-hidden agenda is to enforce a conservative bias or, more specifically, a Bush bias. To this end, he has not only turned CPB into a full-service employment program for apparatchiks but also helped initiate "The Journal Editorial Report," the only public broadcasting show ever devoted to a single newspaper's editorial page, that of the zealously pro-Bush Wall Street Journal. Unlike Mr. Moyers's "Now" - which routinely balanced its host's liberalism with conservative guests like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Paul Gigot and Cal Thomas - The Journal's program does not include liberals of comparable stature.
THIS is all in keeping with Mr. Tomlinson's long career as a professional propagandist. During the Reagan administration he ran Voice of America. Then he moved on to edit Reader's Digest, where, according to Peter Canning's 1996 history of the magazine, "American Dreamers," he was rumored to be "a kind of 'Manchurian Candidate' " because of the ensuing spike in pro-C.I.A. spin in Digest articles. Today Mr. Tomlinson is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal body that supervises all nonmilitary international United States propaganda outlets, Voice of America included. That the administration's foremost propagandist would also be chairman of the board of CPB, the very organization meant to shield public broadcasting from government interference, is astonishing. But perhaps no more so than a White House press secretary month after month turning for softball questions to "Jeff Gannon," a fake reporter for a fake news organization ultimately unmasked as a G.O.P. activist's propaganda site.
As the public broadcasting debate plays out, there will be the usual talk about how to wean it from federal subsidy and the usual complaints (which I share) about the redundancy, commerciality and declining quality of some PBS programming in a cable universe. But once Big Bird, like that White House Thanksgiving turkey, is again ritualistically saved from the chopping block and the Senate restores more of the House's budget cuts, the most crucial test of the damage will be what survives of public broadcasting's irreplaceable journalistic offerings.
Will monitors start harassing Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour," which Mr. Tomlinson trashed at a March 2004 State Department conference as a "tired and slowed down" also-ran to Shepard Smith's rat-a-tat-tat newscast at Fox News? Will "Frontline" still be taking on the tough investigations that network news no longer touches? Will the reportage on NPR be fearless or the victim of a subtle or not-so-subtle chilling effect instilled by Mr. Tomlinson and his powerful allies in high places?
Forget the pledge drive. What's most likely to save the independent voice of public broadcasting from these thugs is a rising chorus of Deep Throats.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The "Integrity" of Andy McCarthy and National Review
Question for talk show interviewer Warren Olney at KCRW-FM, the NPR affiliate in L.A.: The National Review has no integrity. It plies manipulative falsehoods to shape "conservative" public opinion and drive it to the right. Any informed person - even one who doesn't know the magazine's CIA history - can do an easy scan of its contents online and see that. So why are opinionated drips from this bottle of political moonshine always bubbling up on your program to pollute your listeners's lives re national affairs with NR's fascist toxins? - Curious AC
Glenn Greenwald
Nov. 3, 2008
One of the most significant aspects of Thursday's judicial ruling ordering the release of 5 Guantanamo detainees is that it came from Federal District Judge Richard Leon. Leon is an appointee of the very President whose decisions on these detainees he overrode and whose evidence he rejected as woefully inadequate -- George W. Bush. It was Lyon himself who ruled in the first instance that Guantanamo detainees have no right to habeas corpus -- the decision which the Supreme Court ultimately reversed in Boumediene.
Before Leon was appointed by Bush to the bench, he was a long-time right-wing operative. That such an emphatic repudiation of Bush's arguments justifying these detentions came from this judge -- appointed at the height of Bush 43's "War on Terror" popularity and power in 2002 -- underscored how unjustified the detentions were and how flimsy was the evidence on which they were based.
But readers of National Review and Andy McCarthy wouldn't know any of this. That's because, when McCarthy wrote about this ruling on Thursday and vehemently criticized it, he stated, falsely, that Judge Leon was appointed by Bush's father, not by Bush himself:
At issue are six Algerians, one of whom is identified as a member of al Qaeda. His detention was upheld, but Judge Richard Leon -- a Bush 41 appointee reputed to be generally sympathetic to the government -- has ordered the remaining five released.
In the right-wing choruses that rely on National Review for analysis, that is an important distinction, since Bush 41 is regarded as a soft and heretical moderate, while Bush 43 -- particularly when it comes to judicial appointments and "War on Terror" issues -- is viewed as stalwart and pure.
The fact that it was a Bush 43 judge -- a real right-wing ideologue -- who rejected Bush 43's justifications for holding these men at Guantanamo negates many of the standard arguments used to demonize this decision, including the ones McCarthy went on to make.
Despite all of that, it's certainly possible, and I assumed it to be the case when I first read it, that McCarthy's false statement was unintentional and was just a good faith mistake. As a result, I emailed him on Thursday afternoon as follows:
From: Glenn Greenwald
To: amccarthy@nationalreview.com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:43:51 PM
Subject: CORRECTION NEEDED - Judge Leon
He's a Bush 43 appointee, not a Bush 41 appointee (as you said) -
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/leon-bio.html
He's a long-time and well-known lawyer in right-wing circles -- having served as GOP counsel to the Iran-contra Committee, to name just one episode.
By Friday afternoon, McCarthy had posted again on a different topic, but had not corrected his false statement, either in the original post or in a subsequent one. As a result, I emailed National Review Online's Editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez:
From: ggreenwald@salon.com
To: klopez@nationalreview.com
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 3:55:13 PM GMT -02:00 Mid-Atlantic
Subject: CORRECTION NEEDED
Ms. Lopez - A statement made yesterday by Andrew McCarthy is factually false. I notified him of this by email yesterday but he has made no ocorrection.
He yesterday claimed that the Judge who rejected the Bush administration's arguments and ordered the 5 Guantanamo detainees released -- Richard Leon -- was a Bush 41 appointee. He is not. He is a Bush 43 appointee, having been appointed in 2002:
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/leon-bio.html
Mr. McCarthy's inaccurate and still uncorrected post is here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGMzNzBiNWZlNjlkZjNmNDc0Y2IzMjA4ZWMwZDg1N2I=
I'm sure you don't want to mislead your readers.
Glenn Greenwald
SALON.COM
Since that email, Lopez has posted multiple times on all sorts of topics, but has not corrected McCarthy's false statement, nor has McCarthy. The false statement remains.
The original inaccuracy is not a monumental episode. It's the sort of error that is made routinely by everyone (though given how easy it is to verify, and given McCarthy's claimed status as an expert on legal matters, it's certainly quite sloppy). But what kind of magazine, once notified, just refuses to correct such a straightforward and clear factual error like that?
National Review has reacted this way to glaring errors in the past, such as when it allowed Michael Ledeen to falsely state in 2006 that he had opposed the Iraq War even though he had urged its commencement as clearly as could be right in the pages of National Review. During that episode, editors Lopez and Rich Lowry refused to retract or even address the lie Ledeen published despite an avalanche of emails requesting that they do so.
McCarthy's false statement here is certaintly less substantial, but on some level, the relatively minor nature of the original error makes the refusal to acknowledge and correct it that much more pitiful and revealing of what National Review is.
UPDATE: A reader emails to ask how I can prove that McCarthy and Lopez read the email corrections. The answer, of course, is that I can't prove that, though this is my reply to him:
I considered that possibility, of course, and can't say it's impossible, but I consider it highly unlikely in the extreme.
First, it would have to be the case that both of them independently haven't checked their email for days -- 3 days for McCarthy and 2 for Lopez. That would be extremely unusual for people who write online.
Second, both of them have written posts since those emails were sent. They have been online. I highly doubt that, having been online, they just didn't bother to check their emails.
Third, for exactly that reason, I wrote in upper-case letters in the Subject Line: CORRECTION NEEDED. I get literally hundreds of emails every day. I am always behind in responding to them. But I always check my email inbox -- usually multiple times per hour -- precisely because that is how I get notified of tips and corrections. I guarantee you that's true for every blogger.
Fourth, if what you suggest is what happened, I'd say that is itself irresponsible. What's the point of publishing your email address for readers if you don't bother to check for days what you have been sent?
Fifth, as I said, National Review has done this before. When those who aren't within their ideological chorus point out their errors, they tend to ignore them. It's consistent with prior behavior.
Finally, if it's the case that they didn't check their emails, they should say so and make the correction, and I'll be happy to print that.
As I said, I don't think the original error is a big deal -- just garden-variety sloppiness. It's the refusal to correct it that is significant.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/23/national_review/index.html
Glenn Greenwald
Nov. 3, 2008
One of the most significant aspects of Thursday's judicial ruling ordering the release of 5 Guantanamo detainees is that it came from Federal District Judge Richard Leon. Leon is an appointee of the very President whose decisions on these detainees he overrode and whose evidence he rejected as woefully inadequate -- George W. Bush. It was Lyon himself who ruled in the first instance that Guantanamo detainees have no right to habeas corpus -- the decision which the Supreme Court ultimately reversed in Boumediene.
Before Leon was appointed by Bush to the bench, he was a long-time right-wing operative. That such an emphatic repudiation of Bush's arguments justifying these detentions came from this judge -- appointed at the height of Bush 43's "War on Terror" popularity and power in 2002 -- underscored how unjustified the detentions were and how flimsy was the evidence on which they were based.
But readers of National Review and Andy McCarthy wouldn't know any of this. That's because, when McCarthy wrote about this ruling on Thursday and vehemently criticized it, he stated, falsely, that Judge Leon was appointed by Bush's father, not by Bush himself:
At issue are six Algerians, one of whom is identified as a member of al Qaeda. His detention was upheld, but Judge Richard Leon -- a Bush 41 appointee reputed to be generally sympathetic to the government -- has ordered the remaining five released.
In the right-wing choruses that rely on National Review for analysis, that is an important distinction, since Bush 41 is regarded as a soft and heretical moderate, while Bush 43 -- particularly when it comes to judicial appointments and "War on Terror" issues -- is viewed as stalwart and pure.
The fact that it was a Bush 43 judge -- a real right-wing ideologue -- who rejected Bush 43's justifications for holding these men at Guantanamo negates many of the standard arguments used to demonize this decision, including the ones McCarthy went on to make.
Despite all of that, it's certainly possible, and I assumed it to be the case when I first read it, that McCarthy's false statement was unintentional and was just a good faith mistake. As a result, I emailed him on Thursday afternoon as follows:
From: Glenn Greenwald
To: amccarthy@nationalreview.com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:43:51 PM
Subject: CORRECTION NEEDED - Judge Leon
He's a Bush 43 appointee, not a Bush 41 appointee (as you said) -
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/leon-bio.html
He's a long-time and well-known lawyer in right-wing circles -- having served as GOP counsel to the Iran-contra Committee, to name just one episode.
By Friday afternoon, McCarthy had posted again on a different topic, but had not corrected his false statement, either in the original post or in a subsequent one. As a result, I emailed National Review Online's Editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez:
From: ggreenwald@salon.com
To: klopez@nationalreview.com
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 3:55:13 PM GMT -02:00 Mid-Atlantic
Subject: CORRECTION NEEDED
Ms. Lopez - A statement made yesterday by Andrew McCarthy is factually false. I notified him of this by email yesterday but he has made no ocorrection.
He yesterday claimed that the Judge who rejected the Bush administration's arguments and ordered the 5 Guantanamo detainees released -- Richard Leon -- was a Bush 41 appointee. He is not. He is a Bush 43 appointee, having been appointed in 2002:
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/leon-bio.html
Mr. McCarthy's inaccurate and still uncorrected post is here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGMzNzBiNWZlNjlkZjNmNDc0Y2IzMjA4ZWMwZDg1N2I=
I'm sure you don't want to mislead your readers.
Glenn Greenwald
SALON.COM
Since that email, Lopez has posted multiple times on all sorts of topics, but has not corrected McCarthy's false statement, nor has McCarthy. The false statement remains.
The original inaccuracy is not a monumental episode. It's the sort of error that is made routinely by everyone (though given how easy it is to verify, and given McCarthy's claimed status as an expert on legal matters, it's certainly quite sloppy). But what kind of magazine, once notified, just refuses to correct such a straightforward and clear factual error like that?
National Review has reacted this way to glaring errors in the past, such as when it allowed Michael Ledeen to falsely state in 2006 that he had opposed the Iraq War even though he had urged its commencement as clearly as could be right in the pages of National Review. During that episode, editors Lopez and Rich Lowry refused to retract or even address the lie Ledeen published despite an avalanche of emails requesting that they do so.
McCarthy's false statement here is certaintly less substantial, but on some level, the relatively minor nature of the original error makes the refusal to acknowledge and correct it that much more pitiful and revealing of what National Review is.
UPDATE: A reader emails to ask how I can prove that McCarthy and Lopez read the email corrections. The answer, of course, is that I can't prove that, though this is my reply to him:
I considered that possibility, of course, and can't say it's impossible, but I consider it highly unlikely in the extreme.
First, it would have to be the case that both of them independently haven't checked their email for days -- 3 days for McCarthy and 2 for Lopez. That would be extremely unusual for people who write online.
Second, both of them have written posts since those emails were sent. They have been online. I highly doubt that, having been online, they just didn't bother to check their emails.
Third, for exactly that reason, I wrote in upper-case letters in the Subject Line: CORRECTION NEEDED. I get literally hundreds of emails every day. I am always behind in responding to them. But I always check my email inbox -- usually multiple times per hour -- precisely because that is how I get notified of tips and corrections. I guarantee you that's true for every blogger.
Fourth, if what you suggest is what happened, I'd say that is itself irresponsible. What's the point of publishing your email address for readers if you don't bother to check for days what you have been sent?
Fifth, as I said, National Review has done this before. When those who aren't within their ideological chorus point out their errors, they tend to ignore them. It's consistent with prior behavior.
Finally, if it's the case that they didn't check their emails, they should say so and make the correction, and I'll be happy to print that.
As I said, I don't think the original error is a big deal -- just garden-variety sloppiness. It's the refusal to correct it that is significant.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/23/national_review/index.html
Conflicts of Interest May Ensnare Journalists, Too
Also see: "Canadian TV Pro-NutraSweet Advocate Dr. Joe Schwarcz is a Monsanto Shill," and "NPR Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties"
By RONI CARYN RABIN
NYT
November 22, 2008
Health reporters may become entangled in the same kinds of ethical conflicts they often expose when accepting industry-sponsored awards and relying on corporate public relations offices, three researchers warn.
Journalism awards consisting of cash prizes and all-expense-paid trips given out by drug companies are among the more “astonishing” financial ties between journalists and drug companies, the authors said. The paper appears in the online edition of the British medical journal BMJ.
Among the prizes cited are the Embrace Award for reporting on urinary incontinence — consisting of trips to Washington, D.C., and Paris — offered by pharmaceutical firms Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim, as well as another Eli Lilly award for cancer treatment stories that includes a weeklong international trip for two.
The authors also point a finger at journalism training and education programs sponsored by the health care industry and to professorships funded by drug company grants. The writers go on to criticize reporters’ reliance on drug company press officers for referrals to experts or to patients, whose views may have been carefully screened.
Pharmaceutical companies “work really hard to get their message out to the public and physicians through advertisements and continuing medical education and all the other things people hear about, so it makes sense they would go after the media as well,” said Dr. Steven Woloshin, associate professor of medicine at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, one of the paper’s authors. “It’s striking that nobody’s been writing about this.”
Dr. Woloshin said reporters have told him that they often get names of patients from the press officers of drug companies but don’t include that fact in the coverage. “That may be a blind spot for journalists,” he said.
The paper also expressed concern over television programming produced for doctors’ waiting rooms, which may feature journalists but also serve as a platform for drug advertising. “Physicians are legitimately being questioned about their ties to industry and their independence and apparent conflicts of interest, and it’s just as important for the journalists who are doing it,” Dr. Woloshin said.
But Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank and training center, said that while a few freelance writers or magazine writers might vie for industry-sponsored awards, most journalists do not, because the conflicts of interest are obvious.
Len Bruzzese, executive director of the Association for Health Care Journalists, a group that was lauded in the paper for its high ethical standards, said he is concerned about a growing number of online outlets that operate in a “grayer area,” because they do traditional journalism but also provide opportunities for commercial interests to air videos through commercials or more direct sponsorship. For the most part, he said, “journalists are good solid people who will avoid these conflicts, or they wouldn’t have entered journalism to begin with.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22journalists.html?_r=1&ref=health&pagewanted=print
By RONI CARYN RABIN
NYT
November 22, 2008
Health reporters may become entangled in the same kinds of ethical conflicts they often expose when accepting industry-sponsored awards and relying on corporate public relations offices, three researchers warn.
Journalism awards consisting of cash prizes and all-expense-paid trips given out by drug companies are among the more “astonishing” financial ties between journalists and drug companies, the authors said. The paper appears in the online edition of the British medical journal BMJ.
Among the prizes cited are the Embrace Award for reporting on urinary incontinence — consisting of trips to Washington, D.C., and Paris — offered by pharmaceutical firms Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim, as well as another Eli Lilly award for cancer treatment stories that includes a weeklong international trip for two.
The authors also point a finger at journalism training and education programs sponsored by the health care industry and to professorships funded by drug company grants. The writers go on to criticize reporters’ reliance on drug company press officers for referrals to experts or to patients, whose views may have been carefully screened.
Pharmaceutical companies “work really hard to get their message out to the public and physicians through advertisements and continuing medical education and all the other things people hear about, so it makes sense they would go after the media as well,” said Dr. Steven Woloshin, associate professor of medicine at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, one of the paper’s authors. “It’s striking that nobody’s been writing about this.”
Dr. Woloshin said reporters have told him that they often get names of patients from the press officers of drug companies but don’t include that fact in the coverage. “That may be a blind spot for journalists,” he said.
The paper also expressed concern over television programming produced for doctors’ waiting rooms, which may feature journalists but also serve as a platform for drug advertising. “Physicians are legitimately being questioned about their ties to industry and their independence and apparent conflicts of interest, and it’s just as important for the journalists who are doing it,” Dr. Woloshin said.
But Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank and training center, said that while a few freelance writers or magazine writers might vie for industry-sponsored awards, most journalists do not, because the conflicts of interest are obvious.
Len Bruzzese, executive director of the Association for Health Care Journalists, a group that was lauded in the paper for its high ethical standards, said he is concerned about a growing number of online outlets that operate in a “grayer area,” because they do traditional journalism but also provide opportunities for commercial interests to air videos through commercials or more direct sponsorship. For the most part, he said, “journalists are good solid people who will avoid these conflicts, or they wouldn’t have entered journalism to begin with.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22journalists.html?_r=1&ref=health&pagewanted=print
Saturday, November 22, 2008
NPR Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties
“ ... 'In retrospect, that should have been disclosed,' he said. ... Dr. Goodwin earned around $20,000 from GlaxoSmithKline, which for years suppressed studies showing that its antidepressant, Paxil, increased suicidal behaviors. ... "
By GARDINER HARRIS
NYT
November 22, 2008
An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program.
The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated.
Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. In a program broadcast on Sept. 20, 2005, he warned that children with bipolar disorder who were left untreated could suffer brain damage, a controversial view.
“But as we’ll be hearing today,” Dr. Goodwin told his audience, “modern treatments — mood stabilizers in particular — have been proven both safe and effective in bipolar children.”
That same day, GlaxoSmithKline paid Dr. Goodwin $2,500 to give a promotional lecture for its mood stabilizer drug, Lamictal, at the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. In all, GlaxoSmithKline paid him more than $329,000 that year for promoting Lamictal, records given to Congressional investigators show.
In an interview, Dr. Goodwin said that Bill Lichtenstein, the program’s producer, knew of his consulting but that neither thought “getting money from drug companies could be an issue.”
“In retrospect, that should have been disclosed,” he said.
But Mr. Lichtenstein said that he was unaware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial ties to drugmakers and that, after an article in the online magazine Slate this year pointed out that guests on his program had undisclosed affiliations with drugmakers, he called Dr. Goodwin “and asked him point-blank if he was receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies, directly or indirectly, and the answer was, ‘No.’ ”
Asked about the contradiction, Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Lichtenstein each stood by their versions of events.
“The fact that he was out on the stump for pharmaceutical companies was not something we were aware of,” Mr. Lichtenstein said in an interview. “It would have violated our agreements.”
Margaret Low Smith, vice president of National Public Radio, said NPR would remove “The Infinite Mind” from its satellite radio service next week, the earliest date possible. Ms. Smith said that had NPR been aware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial interests, it would not have broadcast the program.
Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, said, “We continue to believe that healthcare professionals are responsible for making disclosures to their employers and other entities, in this case National Public Radio and its listeners.”
“The Infinite Mind” has won more than 60 journalism awards over 10 years and bills itself as “public radio’s most honored and listened to health and science program.” It has more than one million listeners in more than 300 radio markets. Mr. Lichtenstein said that the last original program was broadcast in October, that reruns have been running since and that “the show is going off the air.”
The program has received major underwriting from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, both of which have policies requiring grantees to disclose and manage conflicts of interest. Mr. Grassley wrote letters to both agencies asking whether disclosure rules were followed for the grants. Spokesmen for both agencies said they were cooperating with the investigation.
Mr. Grassley is systematically asking some of the nation’s leading researchers and doctors to provide their conflict-of-interest disclosures, and he is comparing those documents with records of actual payments from drug companies. The records often conflict, sometimes starkly.
In October, Mr. Grassley revealed that Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, an influential psychiatric researcher, earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drugmakers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules. As a result, the National Institutes of Health suspended a $9.3 million research grant to Emory, and Dr. Nemeroff gave up his chairmanship of Emory’s psychiatry department.
In June, the senator revealed that Dr. Joseph Biederman of Harvard, whose work has fueled an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children, had earned at least $1.6 million from drugmakers from 2000 to 2007, and failed to report most of this income to Harvard.
Mr. Grassley’s investigation demonstrates how deeply pharmaceutical commercial interests reach into academic medicine, and it has shown that universities are all but incapable of policing these arrangements. As a result, almost every major medical school and medical society is reassessing its relationships with makers of drugs and devices.
“We know the drug companies are throwing huge amounts of money at medical researchers, and there’s no clear-cut way to know how much and exactly where,” Mr. Grassley said. “Now it looks like the same thing is happening in journalism.”
Mr. Grassley has proposed legislation that would require drugmakers to disclose all payments of $500 or more to doctors. Eli Lilly and Merck have promised to begin doing so next year.
Dr. Goodwin has written an influential textbook on bipolar disorder and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. In an interview, he blamed a changing ethical environment for any misunderstandings with Mr. Lichtenstein about his consulting arrangements. “More than 10 years ago, when he and I got involved in this effort, it didn’t occur to me that my doing what every other expert in the field does might be considered a conflict of interest,” Dr. Goodwin said.
He defended the views he expressed in many of his radio programs and said that, because he consulted for so many drugmakers at once, he had no particular bias.
“These companies compete with each other and cancel each other out,” he said.
Industry critics dismiss that view, saying that experts who consult for drugmakers tend to minimize the value of nondrug or older drug treatments.
In the fine print of a study he wrote in 2003, Dr. Goodwin reported consulting or speaking for nine drugmakers, including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis. Mr. Grassley asked for payment information only from GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Goodwin said that in recent years, GlaxoSmithKline paid him more than other companies.
He said that he had never given marketing lectures for antidepressant medicines like Prozac, so he saw no conflict with a program he hosted in March titled “Prozac Nation: Revisited.” which he introduced by saying, “As you will hear today, there is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to violence or to suicide.”
That same week, Dr. Goodwin earned around $20,000 from GlaxoSmithKline, which for years suppressed studies showing that its antidepressant, Paxil, increased suicidal behaviors.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that although concerns about news media bias were growing, few people believed that journalists took money from those they covered. Disclosures like those surrounding Dr. Goodwin could change that, “so this kind of thing is very damaging,” Mr. Rosenstiel said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22radio.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
By GARDINER HARRIS
NYT
November 22, 2008
An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program.The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated.
Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. In a program broadcast on Sept. 20, 2005, he warned that children with bipolar disorder who were left untreated could suffer brain damage, a controversial view.
“But as we’ll be hearing today,” Dr. Goodwin told his audience, “modern treatments — mood stabilizers in particular — have been proven both safe and effective in bipolar children.”
That same day, GlaxoSmithKline paid Dr. Goodwin $2,500 to give a promotional lecture for its mood stabilizer drug, Lamictal, at the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. In all, GlaxoSmithKline paid him more than $329,000 that year for promoting Lamictal, records given to Congressional investigators show.
In an interview, Dr. Goodwin said that Bill Lichtenstein, the program’s producer, knew of his consulting but that neither thought “getting money from drug companies could be an issue.”
“In retrospect, that should have been disclosed,” he said.
But Mr. Lichtenstein said that he was unaware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial ties to drugmakers and that, after an article in the online magazine Slate this year pointed out that guests on his program had undisclosed affiliations with drugmakers, he called Dr. Goodwin “and asked him point-blank if he was receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies, directly or indirectly, and the answer was, ‘No.’ ”
Asked about the contradiction, Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Lichtenstein each stood by their versions of events.
“The fact that he was out on the stump for pharmaceutical companies was not something we were aware of,” Mr. Lichtenstein said in an interview. “It would have violated our agreements.”
Margaret Low Smith, vice president of National Public Radio, said NPR would remove “The Infinite Mind” from its satellite radio service next week, the earliest date possible. Ms. Smith said that had NPR been aware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial interests, it would not have broadcast the program.
Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, said, “We continue to believe that healthcare professionals are responsible for making disclosures to their employers and other entities, in this case National Public Radio and its listeners.”
“The Infinite Mind” has won more than 60 journalism awards over 10 years and bills itself as “public radio’s most honored and listened to health and science program.” It has more than one million listeners in more than 300 radio markets. Mr. Lichtenstein said that the last original program was broadcast in October, that reruns have been running since and that “the show is going off the air.”
The program has received major underwriting from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, both of which have policies requiring grantees to disclose and manage conflicts of interest. Mr. Grassley wrote letters to both agencies asking whether disclosure rules were followed for the grants. Spokesmen for both agencies said they were cooperating with the investigation.
Mr. Grassley is systematically asking some of the nation’s leading researchers and doctors to provide their conflict-of-interest disclosures, and he is comparing those documents with records of actual payments from drug companies. The records often conflict, sometimes starkly.
In October, Mr. Grassley revealed that Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, an influential psychiatric researcher, earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drugmakers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules. As a result, the National Institutes of Health suspended a $9.3 million research grant to Emory, and Dr. Nemeroff gave up his chairmanship of Emory’s psychiatry department.
In June, the senator revealed that Dr. Joseph Biederman of Harvard, whose work has fueled an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children, had earned at least $1.6 million from drugmakers from 2000 to 2007, and failed to report most of this income to Harvard.
Mr. Grassley’s investigation demonstrates how deeply pharmaceutical commercial interests reach into academic medicine, and it has shown that universities are all but incapable of policing these arrangements. As a result, almost every major medical school and medical society is reassessing its relationships with makers of drugs and devices.
“We know the drug companies are throwing huge amounts of money at medical researchers, and there’s no clear-cut way to know how much and exactly where,” Mr. Grassley said. “Now it looks like the same thing is happening in journalism.”
Mr. Grassley has proposed legislation that would require drugmakers to disclose all payments of $500 or more to doctors. Eli Lilly and Merck have promised to begin doing so next year.
Dr. Goodwin has written an influential textbook on bipolar disorder and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. In an interview, he blamed a changing ethical environment for any misunderstandings with Mr. Lichtenstein about his consulting arrangements. “More than 10 years ago, when he and I got involved in this effort, it didn’t occur to me that my doing what every other expert in the field does might be considered a conflict of interest,” Dr. Goodwin said.
He defended the views he expressed in many of his radio programs and said that, because he consulted for so many drugmakers at once, he had no particular bias.
“These companies compete with each other and cancel each other out,” he said.
Industry critics dismiss that view, saying that experts who consult for drugmakers tend to minimize the value of nondrug or older drug treatments.
In the fine print of a study he wrote in 2003, Dr. Goodwin reported consulting or speaking for nine drugmakers, including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis. Mr. Grassley asked for payment information only from GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Goodwin said that in recent years, GlaxoSmithKline paid him more than other companies.
He said that he had never given marketing lectures for antidepressant medicines like Prozac, so he saw no conflict with a program he hosted in March titled “Prozac Nation: Revisited.” which he introduced by saying, “As you will hear today, there is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to violence or to suicide.”
That same week, Dr. Goodwin earned around $20,000 from GlaxoSmithKline, which for years suppressed studies showing that its antidepressant, Paxil, increased suicidal behaviors.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that although concerns about news media bias were growing, few people believed that journalists took money from those they covered. Disclosures like those surrounding Dr. Goodwin could change that, “so this kind of thing is very damaging,” Mr. Rosenstiel said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22radio.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
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